CHR Summer Event – Together At Last!

The CHR Summer Event took place on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd of September 2021. It was an opportunity for our team to come together after a long and difficult time, like all companies, working mostly from home and virtually with one another.

Given the company’s growth during the many lockdowns, it was incredible to see just what the team looked like when all in one room. It was heart-warming to see how colleagues greeted one another like old friends; you would never have guessed they had never met in person!

The aim of the event was to encourage collaboration, one of CHR’s most important values. We wanted the two days to be about reconnecting with colleagues and giving the team an opportunity to pause, take a step back and really think about all they had achieved. The day started with coffee and pastries, like all good days should start, and the team greeted one another with open arms. Once settled, the CEO Matteo Perucchini gave a welcome speech.

The team then made their way out into the beautiful grounds of the De Vere Beaumont Estate in Old Windsor for lunch and to catch up. We then proceeded onto one of the back fields, where we had an ‘Olympic Team Challenge’ set up. Given that most of our team are rather competitive, it was going to be a full-on afternoon! Colleagues went head-to-head with giant football, jousting challenges, laser clay shooting and many other activities which brought out their best competitive sides!

Senior Consultant, Simon Vanstone said “We’ve just been able to come together and have fun and had this really important bonding opportunity to feel like we are part of something and part of a company together”.

After freshening up from an afternoon in the sun, we all came together for canapes and drinks outside the White House. It was lovely to see the team glammed up and making their way into the Chapel, which took people’s breath away! It was a stunning setting, and the buzz was electric.

CHR’s Values Awards are always a highlight of the year for the team. They were presented virtually last year, so it was brilliant for each member of our Senior Management Group to present the very deserving winners with their awards in person. You can check out the winners in this news item.

After great food, lots of sweets, doughnuts and treats, the team danced the night away, with a Mirror Booth capturing all the fun and giving the team some keepsakes.
It was a bright and early morning on Friday, with a lot of coffee needed! We had half a day left together and the Friday was about working together, learning more about the different departments in the business and several key updates from our amazing working groups.

Of course, we couldn’t let the day go by without some teambuilding! Everyone took on the Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge, where small groups had 20 sticks of spaghetti, Sellotape, some string, and one marshmallow to build the tallest structure with the marshmallow on the top. Afterwards, there was an amazing raffle with lots of donations raised through our CHR for Society committee, who then delivered a wonderful update on this year’s initiatives and introduced their new committee to the company for 2022.

Each head of department took groups off to present an update on what their goals were, and it gave a great opportunity for the team to ask questions. Rich McLean, Head of Operations, presented the founding partners the Queens Award, which we had received earlier in the year, and the CEO gave a speech on the future of the business and then proceeded to wrap up the event; “We really need to think about what brings us together and ultimately it’s all of you, the team, you are the greatest success for CHR, you are our greatest achievement as a business. Everything you have done for each other, for the business and for the clients, that’s what we really need to value, that’s what brings us together and that’s the fabric that supports everything that we do at CHR. This has been a great opportunity to reconnect, to meet new people and for us as a business to yes, think about the past but also to look forward to the future, to really start scoping out how the future will look and most importantly how all of you can play a part in the future of the business.”

Overall, the event was a huge success, and it gave the whole team a new lease of life working with one another.